2000 KONYA, TURKEY Part I
From the moment
I entered the Konya bus station I sensed an
ambience markedly different from Istanbul.
Konya is a
bastion of ancient religion, and the women were either veiled or were swathed
in frumpy long coats and scarves that obscured their hair. What a
contrast to cosmopolitan, westernized Istanbul,
where─thanks to Ataturk’s 1920s reforms─western business suits and skirts
predominated. (However, a struggle was beginning between women who favored
western dress and those who insisted on the importance of covering their hair.)
I had enjoyed
my stay in Istanbul, but the mid-winter soggy
weather had begun to affect my mood, so when a shopkeeper told me the “Whirling
Dervishes” would soon be performing in their hometown of Konya that was my cue to move on. But no one
at the Istanbul
information office or travel agencies could tell me exactly when the Dervishes
would be performing. They knew only that their show would go on for a week
sometime in December, and I didn’t want to risk missing it.
As a child, I
had been fidgety, and my mother used to say to me, “Stop acting like a whirling
Dervish.” My grownup knowledge of Dervishes didn’t go far beyond a vague notion
of a frenetic bunch of dancers who sought a state of ecstasy. In the optimistic
hope of seeing them perform, I had caught a bus to Konya. Since that hadn’t been on my agenda, I
hadn’t found out anything about that city. But on my own in Turkey, I had,
so far, found it easy to find my way around. In Istanbul every corner harbored a carpet
salesman ready with an enthusiastic greeting and an offer they hoped I couldn’t
resist. Their smatterings of vocabulary in half a dozen languages were
often my lifesavers whenever I got lost. Without giving the matter much
thought, I probably assumed that if I had trouble getting around, one of the
ubiquitous carpet vendors would show up to help. Given my experience in Istanbul, how hard could
it be to find my way around a smaller city?
But when I emerged from the bus in Konya,
I was dismayed. No salesmen, no welcoming smiles. I needed help with two
things: finding the center of town where I could hunt for a hotel, and getting
instructions on how to make a telephone call to my friend Elizabeth in New York. We had parted
in Cairo a few
weeks earlier, and I had promised to call her at three o’clock on this day. We
planned to meet in Morocco.
Behind a counter a man appeared to be in charge of telephones, or so the
logo indicated. I approached with confidence, and asked, “Do you speak English?”
That got me only a negative shake of the head. Sometimes, that means, “I don’t
speak it well.”
Or “I’m too self-conscious to test my basic vocabulary.” So I tried,
“U.S.A…. America.”
Everywhere I’d traveled, locals understood those words. But this time I was
faced with no response, unless you count a faint glower. I pantomimed phoning
and paying. Still, nothing. I watched with envy as people elbowed in front of
me, paid the clerk, and left with cards similar to the ones I’d seen in public
telephone stations in Cairo.
But I was bewildered. I couldn’t see a phone anywhere. I was uneasy about the
press of impatient people behind me, so I gave up and left the counter. I
wasn’t sure why, but I followed two dowdy card-carrying women outside, and
found that my instincts had been right. A couple of dozen telephones were in
evidence, lined up in bright yellow doorless cages. They made me think of a
parade of fishermen in rain slickers.
When I tentatively smiled at women in the Konya bus station, they quickly turned away.
Swathed in modest scarves or veils, they appeared to me decidedly old
world-ish, and they seemed to regard me as an alien creature, which of course I
was. So I reverted to my customary solo travel mode of relying for information
about a foreign territory. That means keeping my eye out for a middle-aged man
in a western suit. He is likely to be an English speaking, middle or upper
class businessman, who knows his way around the area, and is usually delighted
to tell me where I am, and how to get somewhere else.
But, here, the men I asked for help didn’t speak English. That, of course,
is one reason people take properly organized group tours. I was about to give
up the phone call and find a cab or bus down town, when a pudgy young man
approached. In nearly perfect English he asked if I needed help. His name
was Ahmed. He wore a neat sweater and slacks, though his unshaven chin
detracted from an otherwise pleasant appearance. But this was not a beauty
contest, and I jumped at his offer. He led me back to the phone counter,
exchanged information with the clerk and handed the man my change. He then
directed me to go outside again. I was to stand by a phone until he came
out. I decided not to question Ahmed.
All the phones but one were taken, and when I had waited a couple of
minutes, a man began to elbow his way in front of me. I shuffled awkwardly.
Determined to protect access to “my” phone, I tried to explain my position to
the man, though I was sure he wouldn’t understand. Since I didn’t know myself
what would happen next, I couldn’t have told him, even in English, the precise
basis of my rights.
As I hesitated, Ahmed raced toward me, shouting, “Pick up the phone!”
I still worried about the man behind me, but Ahmed elbowed him aside, picked
up the receiver, and handed it to me.
Elizabeth’s
voice came through the wire like a small miracle. It was great to talk to
her, especially about our plans to meet in Casablanca. I savored the music of the words
we spoke: “Istanbul.”
“Casablanca.” “Cairo.” The names of
those ancient sites, all part of my adolescent fantasies, still resonated with
the ring of romance. Just two days earlier I had gazed in astonishment at the
glorious tiles of Istanbul’s Blue Mosque, and
the Topkapi Palace, home of the Ottoman Sultan.
Soon I would wander the souks of Marrekesh, in the Moroccan land of
great sand drifts, brilliant azure skies, and shadowed, narrow alleys. The land of Humphrey Bogart and Claude Raines.
As I left the phone booth, Ahmed asked, “Would you like me to recommend an
inexpensive hotel?” How did he know? Possibly, because after several wrinkled
hours on a bus, I was obviously not destined for five stars. Maybe my backpack
gave me away.
In any case I said, “Yes. Please. Find me the kind of hotel where an
American lady my age would not be expected to stay.”
As Ahmed escorted me to a city bus, I asked about the Dervishes. No problem,
he said. He would take me to buy a ticket. But first he led me to a
perfect hotel; perfect for my wallet anyway. Given that qualification, I was
not surprised to find a shower with tepid water and no curtain. I had lived in Mexico long
enough not to be troubled by shower water raining all over the bathroom. With
my room in the hotel secured, Ahmed and I took off on a bus to the sports
stadium where the Dervish tickets were sold.
On the way, as Ahmed talked about his life, I was reminded of a friend’s
insistence that a story ought to be either funny, interesting or true. Ahmed’s
was complex and entertaining, so I wasn’t concerned about its veracity. He said
he was twenty-nine, born of a Turkish father and Belgian mother, or the other
way around. His drama unfolded in a stream of excited English, which I couldn’t
always follow. I tried also to absorb the tale he was telling me, at the same
time as I took in street scenes from the bus window. Rows of drab, gray, stone
buildings reminded me of the blocks of Soviet-style apartments I’d passed, mile
after mile, on the bus to Konya.
What a dreary contrast to the splendid ancient mosques in Istanbul. It had taken centuries to regress
from stunningly designed architecture to blocks of stone that resembled
prisons.
I turned my full attention to Ahmed who said his parents had separated when
he was a child, whereupon he was whisked off to Belgium, where he lived with his
mother until he was nine. Then he returned to his father in Turkey. A year
before I encountered him, he had met a young woman vacationing with her family
at the Black Sea. The family invited him to
visit their Belgian home and a week later he proposed marriage. The family
approved, and with lightning speed the couple was married, and anticipated
living happily ever after. But, in spite of his Belgian passport, the
government would not let Ahmed immigrate. For reasons obscure to me, his wife
could not live with him in Turkey.
This was a melancholy tale, but as soon as he saved several thousand dollars, Ahmed
said, he could persuade the Belgian authorities to allow him re-entry. I
didn’t ask how he expected to collect the money. But I figured I would probably
be contributing to it.
Ahmed’s problems intrigued me, but before I could ask more questions, we
reached the stadium. Under high arches featuring giant pictures of Mevlana, the
Sufi founder of the Whirling Dervishes, we proceeded along a long, wide
walkway. Inside, a clerk first told me the week’s performance was sold out. My
heart sank. But apparently he had only wanted to tease me into disappointment,
to enhance my pleasure when he announced that just one ticket had been turned
back all week. It was for that very night, and I could have it. I paid the
modest sum, and counted my blessings. Some cities are serendipitous, and it began
to look as if Konya
would be one of them. Ready to leave me on my own, Ahmed instructed me how to
get back to the hotel, and how to return to the stadium. He first insisted he
didn’t want money; then, after I pressed harder, he agreed to accept something.
“How much?”
“Whatever you like.”
That was the answer I most disliked, and my head reeled at the information I
would need to calculate a fair wage: the price of an official tour, minus a
discount for lack of professional training; plus a raise for personalized
attention; the Turkish-U.S. exchange rate; Ahmed’s cost of living; discount for
his refusal to state a fee at the beginning….And then, of course, there were
the restraints of my budget. The task was impossible. My gratitude for Ahmed’s
help turned briefly to irritation. How could he expect me to figure out a fair
price? In Istanbul
I had more or less learned to translate Turkish money into dollars, and I
quickly handed Ahmed a few crumpled bills. But I had no way of knowing whether
the amount was an insult or enough to feed him for a month. I still don’t know
how much money I paid him. That kind of uncertainty is a hazard of my
preference for traveling alone and often dealing with the “informal economy.”
In spite of the anxiety those habits sometimes provoke, I like the spontaneity
and the suspense about what will happen next better than the orderly,
predictability of organized group tours. Making my way solo had so far been
entertaining, and I was eager to see how the drama of the Dervishes would
unfold.
Next: The Dervishes: Part 2